Dig­ity GmbH, a spin-off of the Uni­ver­sity Med­ical Cen­tre Göt­tin­gen, has announced that it has secured a seed financ­ing round of 1.4 mil­lion euros. This invest­ment is sup­ported by renowned ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists from Lower Sax­ony, Thuringia and expe­ri­enced busi­ness angels from all over Ger­many: NBank Cap­i­tal Beteili­gungs­ge­sellschaft, bm‑t beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen gmbh (bm|t), Life Sci­ence Val­ley Ven­tures Man­age­ment GmbH from Göt­tin­gen, Mit­tel­ständis­che Beteili­gungs­ge­sellschaft Nieder­sach­sen (MBG) mbH from Hanover, the busi­ness angel Christoph Höynck from Mün­ster and 4SeedImpact Busi­ness Angel GmbH from Chem­nitz. The funds will be used to increase sales and pro­duc­tion capac­i­ties for the inno­v­a­tive ARTUS pre­ven­tion exoskele­ton, which aims to improve ergonom­ics and occu­pa­tional safety in man­ual work processes.

Since 2019, the found­ing team has been work­ing on exoskele­tons for the hands to address an unsolved prob­lem: More than 30% of acci­dents at work involve the hand. Thanks to the EXIST research trans­fer pro­gramme of the Fed­eral Min­istry for Eco­nomic Affairs and Cli­mate Pro­tec­tion (BMWK), the team was able to use the sci­en­tific find­ings and pro­to­types to enter the mar­ket. The com­pany was founded in 2023 and is already mar­ket­ing its first prod­uct, ARTUS. This is a pas­sive exoskele­ton that pro­tects the fin­gers from acci­dents and exces­sive strain on the skin and fin­ger joints. The prob­lem has been unsolved for a long time and shortly after its launch, ARTUS was hon­oured with the 2024 Ergonom­ics Award.

Trained orthopaedic tech­ni­cian and Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Viola Bar­tels is delighted with the suc­cess of the financ­ing round: “At Dig­ity, we believe in the power of our hands — our most impor­tant tools in every­day life. Our mis­sion is to ensure that they are always healthy, pro­tected and pro­duc­tive. Our tech­nolo­gies enable us to equip hands with rigid, and freely mov­able exoskele­tons for the first time. This seed fund­ing puts us in a posi­tion to roll out our ARTUS prod­uct on a large scale and develop it fur­ther in parallel.”

“With ARTUS, Dig­ity has devel­oped a unique exoskele­ton for the fin­gers with great poten­tial for use in both indus­try and logis­tics and already has other prod­ucts in the pipeline. That con­vinced us,” says Thomas Müller, Invest­ment Man­ager at NBank Capital.

“As a win­dow man­u­fac­turer, my father was already famil­iar with the prob­lem of tex­tile gloves not help­ing. I was even more enthu­si­as­tic about how well the Dig­ity team addresses this issue with their inno­v­a­tive exoskele­ton and thus makes an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to more pre­ven­tion in occu­pa­tional safety. The found­ing team also has many con­nec­tions to the Eichs­feld region of Thuringia,” adds Ste­fan Jahn, Senior Invest­ment Man­ager at bm|t in Thuringia.

Dr Martha Smets, Invest­ment Man­ager at Life Sci­ence Val­ley Ven­tures, is impressed by the rapid mar­ket suc­cess: “Dig­ity has man­aged to launch a strong prod­uct with high demand in a com­plex reg­u­la­tory envi­ron­ment. This is a remark­able mile­stone in the life sci­ence sec­tor, as such early proof-of-mar­ket is rare and is already gen­er­at­ing sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial impact. The early mar­ket accep­tance and the asso­ci­ated eco­nomic suc­cess empha­sise the impor­tance of invest­ing in the life sci­ence sec­tor and pro­mot­ing inno­va­tion. This strength­ens Göt­tin­gen as a cen­tre of sci­ence and business.”

“With our com­mit­ment, we want to help this inno­v­a­tive prod­uct from Lower Sax­ony to con­tinue to estab­lish itself on the mar­ket in the long term and become an indis­pens­able tool in the world of work. We believe in the oppor­tu­ni­ties that Artus and its tech­nolo­gies offer,” says Fab­rizio Mangano, Invest­ment Man­ager at MBG, explain­ing the decision.

The found­ing team was a deci­sive fac­tor for the busi­ness angels. “We develop holis­tic solu­tions in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary teams through open dis­cus­sions. See­ing how the Dig­ity team inter­acts with cus­tomers, part­ners and investors on a basis of trust and respect has shown strong exe­cu­tion power and a pro­nounced entre­pre­neur­ial mind­set. This is what ulti­mately con­vinced us,” says Chris­tiane Hoffmann.

Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Clau­dio Gar­cia is also look­ing for­ward to the next steps: “Thanks to the exper­tise and cap­i­tal, we can now con­cen­trate fully on our busi­ness. The mix of investors is ideal for mas­ter­ing the next chal­lenges. In addi­tion to inter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion, the next step is sales to medium-sized and large com­pa­nies, which usu­ally have long dis­tances to cover.”

The exoskele­tons are already in use in var­i­ous indus­tries, whether in the assem­bly of insu­la­tion or in the pro­duc­tion lines of auto­mo­tive and house­hold appli­ance man­u­fac­tur­ers. “Indi­vid­u­ally coor­di­nated trial phases and cus­tomised solu­tions for dif­fer­ent require­ments are the key to suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion in order to keep the work­force healthy and pro­duc­tive,” empha­sises Viola Bartels.

About Digity GmbH

Dig­ity GmbH is a com­pany in the field of exoskele­ton tech­nol­ogy. Founded in 2023 as a spin-off of the Uni­ver­sity Med­ical Cen­tre Göt­tin­gen, Dig­ity devel­ops and pro­duces inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to improve ergonom­ics and occu­pa­tional safety in var­i­ous indus­tries. The first prod­uct, ARTUS, is a pas­sive exoskele­ton spe­cially devel­oped for the fin­gers and has already won sev­eral awards.

www.3digity.com

About NBank Capital

NBank Cap­i­tal Beteili­gungs­ge­sellschaft mbH is a wholly owned sub­sidiary of NBank and your con­tact for ven­ture cap­i­tal in Lower Sax­ony. The allo­ca­tion of funds from the state of Lower Sax­ony and the Euro­pean Regional Devel­op­ment Fund (ERDF) via the NBeteili­gun­gen and NSeed pro­grammes as well as close coop­er­a­tion with NBank Capital’s part­ners offer a com­pre­hen­sive range of sup­port options.

https://www.nbank-capital.de/

About bm|t

bm|t, based in Erfurt, is a sub­sidiary of Thüringer Auf­baubank and the lead­ing address for ven­ture and risk cap­i­tal financ­ing in Thuringia. The bm|t cur­rently man­ages twelve funds with a total vol­ume of around 445 mil­lion euros, which invest in inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies in almost all sec­tors and in all phases of com­pany devel­op­ment — both in the start-up and growth phases — or in com­pany suc­ces­sion situations.

https://www.bm‑t.de/

About the Life Science Valley Growth Fund

The early-stage fund for life sci­ence tech­nol­ogy spin-offs in Lower Sax­ony aims to utilise the local com­mer­cial and entre­pre­neur­ial poten­tial aris­ing from excel­lent life sci­ence research and tech­nolo­gies. It sup­ports com­pa­nies in the fields of biotech­nol­ogy, med­ical tech­nol­ogy, dig­i­tal health, agri­cul­tural sci­ences and food tech­nol­ogy and pro­motes suc­cess­ful start-ups in tech­no­log­i­cal growth areas.

https://lsv-ventures.de/#start

About the Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft (MBG)

MBG Nieder­sach­sen is the inde­pen­dent invest­ment com­pany for small and medium-sized enter­prises in Lower Sax­ony. We invest in the form of open and silent part­ner­ships and are inde­pen­dent of banks, indi­vid­u­als and sec­tors — with the state and fed­eral gov­ern­ment as risk part­ners. We have the right financ­ing solu­tion for every com­pany, in every sec­tor, in almost every phase of the com­pany. No mat­ter what entre­pre­neur­ial chal­lenge you are fac­ing. Our equity financ­ing strength­ens your equity capital.

https://www.mbg-hannover.de/

About 4SeedImpact

Chris­tiane Hoff­mann, Kevin Tost and Rico Lieder are expe­ri­enced entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness angels who have come together at 4SeedImpact to invest in start-ups with cap­i­tal, exper­tise and pas­sion. They see them­selves as spar­ring part­ners for the quick stages that need to be mas­tered on the path to long-term success.

https://www.4seedimpact.com/

About Christoph Höynck:

As founder and Man­ag­ing Part­ner of the Pul­sar Con­sult­ing Group based in Mün­ster and Munich, Christoph Höynck has been sup­port­ing founders and early-stage start-ups for a long time. He already sup­ported Dig­ity as a men­tor prior to its foun­da­tion dur­ing the EXIST research trans­fer programme.